IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 10 : Q - 2. Critically examine the need hierarchy theory of motivation. Do you think that the assumptions of Maslow are hypothetical?

 

Ans. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory

 

Abraham Harold Maslow advocated the theory of motivation based on various needs. Maslow identified five distinct categories of needs. He arranged these needs into a hierarchy, and stated that individuals wish to satisfy particular need to a moderate extent, and then tries to satisfy the next need in the hierarchy. Maslow identified human needs into five distinct categories. They are arranged in the order of their importance forming a hierarchy.

 

According to Maslow, certain concepts are relevant for understanding the needs. They are pre-potency, deprivation, domination, gratification and activation. Pre-potency is the strength associated with the needs. Physiological needs have greater pre-potency. Deprivation is the perception of an obstacle for satisfaction of a need. Thus, deprived need has high pre-potency. Domination is attaching importance to a need. A deprived need dominates the individual. In order to reduce dissonance associated with the deprivation, individuals try to gratify by undertaking some action. Therefore, gratification is the satisfaction of the need. Gratified need does not dominate. At the end, activation of need determine motivation. Need satisfaction activates the needs from one level to next higher levels. Maslow believes that these repeat as a cycle until the highest level need is satisfied. Based on the concept Maslow identified five categories of needs and their role in motivating individuals. They are described below:

 

1) Physiological Needs : Basic and primary needs required for human existence are physiological needs. They relate to biological and are required for preservation of basic human life. These needs are identified to the human organ in the body. They are finite needs. They must be satisfied repeatedly until human beings die. They are not associated with money alone. They are hunger, thirst, sleep, shelter, sex, and other bodily needs. The proposition relating to the basic needs is that they are primary motivators to any individual and once they are satisfied, they no longer motivate. The next level need becomes important for satisfaction until the basic need is dormant. Provision of adequate monetary rewards to satisfy these needs motivate employees in organisations.

 

2) Safety Needs : Individuals seek protection from natural environment, biological danger, economic deprivation and emotional threat from other beings and animals. For this purpose, he wishes security for himself. The protection may be in the form of seeking a shelter and forming into primary groups to combat threat from the natural beings. The motivational proposition are that the safety needs dominate as soon as physiological needs are satisfied, and after individual seeks to satisfy fairly the security needs they do not motivate him. In order to motivate employees, organisations provide fringe benefits, health and accident insurance, housing loans, etc.

 

3) Social Needs : Basically individual is a social being. He cannot live in isolation and silence. Thus, he intends to establish relationship with other human beings and some times wish to rear animals. Social needs emerge from the basic urge of individuals to associate, belong with others, make friendship, make companionship, desire to be accepted by others and seek affection. These needs are secondary in nature. The propositions relating to social needs are that these needs are satisfied by symbolic behaviour and through physic and psychic contact with others in the society. They are substantially infinite and exist until the end of human life. Organisations should provide scope for formation of informal groups, encourage working in teams, and provide scope for interpersonal communication, interpersonal relationships and interpersonal understanding to motivate employees.

 

4) Esteem Needs : Maslow believes that people seek growth. They have natural desire to be identified and respected by others. This instinct is called as esteem. Esteem needs are associated with self-esteem and esteem from others. The need for power, self respect, autonomy, self confidence, achievement, recognition of competence, knowledge, desire to have freedom, status and secure attention of others, appreciation are some of the esteem needs individual wishes to satisfy. Maslow identified them, as higher order needs. The nature of esteem needs is that they are dormant until basic, security and social needs are fairly satisfied. Satisfaction of esteem needs produce a feeling of self-confidence, strength, capability and adequacy in the individuals.

 

5) Self-actualization Needs : Self-actualization is transformation of perception and dream into reality. Individuals have inner potential to do some thing different from others. Realising the full inner potential, one wishes to become what he is capable of becoming. Attaining to the level of fulfilment of selfactualization needs is a difficult task as individuals are not clear about their inner potentials until an opportunity is perceived. Moreover these needs change with a change in human life. The intensity of self-actualization changes over life cycle, vary from person to person and environment.

 

The following propositions are made about the motivation of individuals based on the Maslow hierarchy of needs.

 

i) Five needs are classified into lower order needs and higher order needs. While physiological, safety and security needs are lower order needs, esteem and self actualization needs are higher order needs.

 ii) Lower order needs are satisfied externally and higher needs are satisfied internally.

 iii) Individuals start satisfying lower order needs first and proceed to satisfy higher order needs later.

iv) No need is fully satisfied during the life period of individuals. A need substantially satisfied no longer motivates.

v) A need when substantially satisfied produces satisfaction and it becomes dormant. Immediately the next level need becomes active. So Individual is continuously motivated to satisfy unsatisfied needs. So, motivation is a continuous process.

vi) Satisfaction of lower order needs does not produce contentment. In fact, they produce discontentment to satisfy other needs.

 vii) Not all individuals have the same priority to satisfy the needs. Priorities differ from country to country and from situation to situation.

viii) Individuals are aggressive in the satisfaction of basic needs and unconsciousness demands the satisfaction. However, they use social consciousness in the satisfaction of other needs.

 

 Maslow’s need hierarchy theory of motivation was considered logical and simple to understand human motivation. The theory has received attention of practicing managers as they feel that identification of needs of employees provides an insight to motivate them. This theory suggested that giving same reward more than individuals’ desire will have diminishing marginal utility. This has specific significance to the practicing manager.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 10 : Q - 1. ‘Non-financial motivators play a significant role in motivation’ . Discuss. What are the limitations of financial motivators.

 

Ans. Non Financial Motivators : General hypothesis is that financial incentives motivate employees for higher work. However, individuals have variety of needs that they want to satisfy while working in the organisations. People attach more importance to socio-psychological needs that cannot be satisfied by money alone at higher level of managerial hierarchy. Thus management provides non-financial incentives to motivate people in the organisation in addition to the financial incentives. However, the emphasis of non-financial incentives is to provide psychological and emotional satisfaction rather than financial satisfaction. For example, receiving promotion in the organisation gives psychological satisfaction. This is because one gets better status, more challenging job, authority etc., which are more worth than getting more pay by way of promotion. Some important non-financial incentives include: status, promotion, responsibility, recognition, job security, etc.

 

Financial Motivators : Financial motivators relate to money or any other benefits that can be converted or expressed into monetary unit. In the present day context, money has become a means to satisfy the physical needs. It is an instrument of obtaining social position and power. Thus, money became a basic incentive for individuals. Wages, salaries, allowances, bonus, financial incentives, commission etc. are financial motivators. These financial motivators motivate individuals to join the organisations. The financial package should motivate the present and prospective employees.

 

However, it should be borne in mind that money is not an end but a means of an end. It can satisfy both physical and safety needs. Interestingly some people place a little emphasis on money irrespective of their possession. However, certain people are continuously driven by the desire to acquire more money even if they have possessed wealth to satisfy their basic needs. This may be to satisfy their desire for status, esteem and self-actualization. This reveals that money is an instrument by which a person can satisfy various types of needs. Even research supports use of money in satisfying esteem and recognition needs too, as well as basic physiological needs.

 

The above discussion makes it clear that money is a motivator. Its role in motivation is unquestionable. However behavioural theories placed importance on non-monetary rewards and suggested that if money only motivates, there could have been human machines and not human beings.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 9 : Q - 3. What do you mean by the extra organisational stressors? Discuss various extra organisational factors which create stress in the organisation.

Ans. Extra-Organisational Factors

 

Environmental Factors : Environmental factors are extra organisational. Nevertheless, they create job stress in the individuals. These are internal and external factors. Most of the internal environmental factors relate to the organisational goals, management systems, structure, processes and design of organisations. They are discussed in the preceding section. External environmental factors relate to the general environment of the organisation. They are political, economical, technological, legal, ecological, governmental, social, cultural and ethical. Certain propositions describing the impact of environment on stress are presented below:

 

    i) The political party in power as per their ideology enacts legislation in the Parliament. As the new laws and regulations are enacted by the new political party, the political changes bring uncertainty in the environment. This compels employees to adapt to the new legal order. This creates stress.

   ii) Economic environment deals with income levels, demand and supply, inflation etc. Changes in these factors may require more work or better strategy to cope up with the environment. This creates stress when the employees are unable to adjust to the new situations. For instance, increase in inflation levels creates pressures on the employee income levels leading to stress.

  iii) Technological changes bring new methods of production and new ways of handling the organisational tasks. Employees are required to learn new skills in order to discharge their jobs effectively. Unable to cope up with the new technology creates stress in the employees. For example, bank employees felt stress when the bank management decided to introduce computers.

   iv) Legal environment consists of complex web of laws and regulation intended to control the business operations. Organisations are required to follow the legal provisions otherwise they are subject to prosecution. Practical difficulties arise in the implementation of the legislative framework. Employees who are unable to respond properly to the laws and regulations find themselves in stressful situation.

    v) The government is enacting legislation to protect the ecological environment in the country. Organisations are compelled to adapt to the legislative framework protecting the ecological environment. Protecting the ecological balance becomes a cause for potential stress.

    vi) Government Administration is composed of the administrative machinery and institutions that enforce the laws, regulations, policies and other government instructions. The bureaucratic practices of the administrative machinery can create stress in the executives.

   vii) Social, cultural and ethical environment can bring stress in the individuals. Social factors influence the life styles of employees. Certain social security measures such as health protection, civic facilities and social groups reduce stress in the employees. Certain sociological variables such as race, sex, social class, gender etc., and cultural factors such as beliefs, customs and traditions cause potential stress.

 

Certain other environmental factors that result in stress in recent times are stock market crashes, frequent elections, down sizing, information technology and the related changes in the business. Career oriented couples, racial and gender discriminations, health hazards due to pollution and imbalance in the natural environment etc. are contributing to stress.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 9 : Q - 2. Examine intra organisational factors of stress. How do they influence the organisation?

 Ans. Intra Organisational Factors

 

Individual Factors : Individual factors, which cause stress include: personality and individual differences, family problems, economic problems, life styles and role demands.

      i) Personality and individual differences: Individual basic dispositions are the main reason for potential stress. Introversion, extroversion, masculinity, rigidity, locus of control, personal life, demographic differences such as age, health, education and occupation are some of the reasons causing stress in individuals. It is found that type A personality is prone to more stress than type B personality. Type A personality is characterised by emotion and sensitivity to organisation goals, competitive spirit and achievement oriented behaviour. This leads to frustration even for small deviations from the expectations, thus feeling of more stress. Type B personality is typically relaxed, carefree, patient and less serious in achieving objectives. Thus, he never feels stress. Some propositions of personality and individual stress are:

• Age is positively related to stress. When a person grows older, his expectations also go up. If he is unable to find avenues for realising expectations, he feels stress.

• Sound health enables a person to cope up stress better than unsound health.

• Education and health are related positively and negatively. Better education provides an opportunity to understand things in a better manner. Even the level of maturity increases with better education. So better educated persons are less prone to stress. Poorly educated people in relation to the jobs are likely to feel more stress due to the poor adaptability on the jobs.

• The nature of the occupation and stress are related. Certain occupations are inherently stressful than the other occupations. For instance, doctors, lawyers, politicians etc. At the same time occupation also gives enough stress tolerance ability. Politicians are found to posses more stress tolerance ability.

• Strong urge for satisfaction of needs compel people to over work and may lead to stress.

• Greater degree of locus of control leads to stress. A person is less likely to feel stress as he believes that he can exercise control over external factors.

• Self-efficacy and stress are negatively related. Higher degree of self-efficacy elevates motivation levels. Therefore people with greater self-efficacy remain calm and effectively face stressful situation. Perception of capacity to bring changes provides greater ability to withstand stress.

• Another personal disposition related to stress is psychological hardiness. Hardiness is the ability to withstand provocation from others. People with greater psychological hardiness are able to survive and withstand stressful environment. For instance, people who remain calm even at the provocation of others and ignore the esteem are less likely to feel stress. Individual differences in perception, job experiences, social support, hostility etc., are some of the reasons that cause stress.

• Perception helps in understanding the environment. Person possessing a positive perception understands reality and appraises the events objectively. Thus, he feels less stress.

• Job experience and stress are negatively related. As one gains experience he develops adaptability to various job and organisational demands. He realises the job expectations. He develops a mechanism to deal with stress situations. Therefore more experienced people remains cool, calm, and ignore stressors than young and inexperienced employees.

• Hostility and aggressive behaviour is positively related to stress. A person who becomes aggressive and gets quick anger is cynical and does not trust others. He feels more stress than others who are cool and calm.

 

     ii) Family Problems : Family issues influence the personal life of individuals. Sound marital relationships, marital discipline, early and healthy children may lead to happy personal life. They enjoy the life and become positive in their attitudes. So they do not tend to greater stress. On the other hand, poor marital relationships, nagging wife, family separations, extra marital relationships, disturbing children, poor settlement of family members, aging parents, dual working couple, death of spouse or other close family member are some of the reasons for greater stress in the individuals.

 

     iii) Economic Problems: Economic difficulties are the main cause of stress. Poor management of personal finances, heavy family expenditure, and constant demand for money, poor incoming earning capacity and slow financial growth in the job are some of the economic reasons responsible for greater stress. For instance, an increasing family expenditure, increased expenditure on children education and health create heavy demand for income. This creates greater stress in the individuals.

 

     iv) Life Styles: Life Styles of individuals can cause stress. The following situations of life style cause stress:

• Sedentary life styles cause greater stress.

• Individuals experiencing certain unique situations may be compelled to alter their attitude, emotions and behaviour. These are known as life trauma. Life trauma is potential reason for stress.

• Faster career changes bring more responsibilities to the individuals. Persons occupying higher positions in the younger age are likely to get heart attacks due to greater stress. This is because of inability to adapt to the new carrier responsibilities.

     v) Role Demands: Individuals play multiple roles in their personal life and organisations. In their personal life, they play the roles of family head, husband, father, brother and son. In social life they play the roles of club members, informal community group members, members of recreation groups, religious groups and a number of other social groups. Similarly in organisations, employees play the role of superior, subordinate, co-worker, union leader, informal group leaders etc. Incidentally, all these roles are performed simultaneously. Thus, they cause anxiety and emotion. Another potential reason is role conflict. It arises because of poor role perception, role ambiguity, role overload and role overlapping. Role ambiguity and stress are positively related. The greater the role conflict, individual experiences more stress.

 

 

Organisational Factors : An organisation is a combination of resources, goals, strategies, and policies. In order to make people to work, organisations create structure, process and working conditions. In modern organisations, number of factors create an environment of stress. The changing environmental dynamics, globalisation, organisational adjustments like mergers and acquisitions lead to stress among employees. In addition, a number of internal organisational factors cause employee stress. Some of them are poor working conditions, strained labour management relations, disputed resource allocations, co-employee behaviour, organisational design and policies, unpleasant leadership styles of the boss, misunderstandings in organisational communication, bureaucratic controls, improper motivation, job dissatisfaction, and less attention to merit and seniority. Let us learn the organisational stressors in detail.

      i) Working Conditions : Working conditions and stress are inversely related. Employees working with poor working conditions are subject to greater stress. The factors that lead to more stress are crowded work areas, dust, heat, noise, polluted air, strong odour due to toxic chemicals, radiation, poor ventilation, unsafe and dangerous conditions, lack of privacy etc.

     ii) Organisational Tasks : Organisational tasks are designed to meet the objectives and goals. Poorly designed tasks lead to greater stress. Task autonomy, task inter-dependency, task demands, task overload are some of the potential reasons for stress in organisations. For instance greater the task interdependence, greater is the coordination required. This requires employees to adjust themselves to coworkers, superiors, and subordinates, irrespective of their willingness. They are expected to communicate, coordinate, exchange views, with other people irrespective of caste, creed, gender, religion and political differences. Lack of adjustment and poor tolerance to others lead to greater degree of stress.

     iii) Administrative Policies and Strategies : Employee’s stress is related to certain administrative strategies followed by the organisations. Down sizing, competing pressure, unfair pay structures, rigidity in rules, job rotation and ambiguous policies are some of the reasons for stress in organisations.

     iv) Organisational Structure and Design : As pointed out earlier organisational structure is designed to facilitate individual’s interaction in the realisation of organisational goals. Certain aspects of design like specialisation, centralisation, line and staff relationships, span of control, and organisational communication can severely create stress in organisations. For example, wider span of management compels the executive to manage large number of subordinates. This may create greater stress. Similarly, frequent line and staff conflict lead to obstacles in the work performance. Inability to resolve the conflicts lead to stress.

      v) Organisation Process and Styles : A number of organisational processes are designed for meeting organisational goals. Communication process, control process, decision making process, promotion process, performance appraisal process, etc. are designed for realising organisational objectives. These processes limit the scope of functioning of employees. Improper design of various organisational processes leads to strained relationships among the employees. They may also cause de-motivation and job dissatisfaction. Consequently, employee feels stress in adapting to the processes.

      vi) Organisational Leaderships : Top management is responsible for creation of a sound organisation climate and culture by appropriate managerial style. The climate provided should be free of tensions, fear, and anxiety. Authoritarian leadership style creates a directive environment in which employees are pressurised to attain targets. They work under impersonal relationships and tight controls. This creates greater work stress to employees. On the other hand, a climate of warm and friendliness, scope for participation in decision making, non financial motivation and flexibility are encouraged under democratic leadership style. This relieves stress in the employees. Therefore, employees working under authoritarian leadership styles experience stress than employees working under democratic leadership style.

      vii) Organisational Life Cycle : Every organisation moves through four phases of organisational life cycle. They are birth, growth, maturity and decline. In each of these stages the structure and the design of organisation undergoes frequent changes. In addition, human beings are subject to metamorphosis to adapt to the stages in the life cycle. In this process, employees are subject to job stress. For instance in the initial stages of organisational birth, stress is caused because of ambiguous policies and designs. In the growth stage, employees experience stress due to failure to meet conflicting demands. At the time of decline, stress is caused due to down sizing, retrenchment and loss of financial rewards and changing organisational systems.

      viii) Group Dynamics : Groups are omni present in organisations. Groups arise out of inherent desire of human beings and spontaneous reactions of people. In organisations both formal groups and informal groups exist. A formal group exist in the form of committees, informal group exit among different levels of organisation. Groups have a number of functional and dysfunctional consequences. They provide social support and satisfaction, which is helpful in relieving stress. At the same time, they become the source of stress also. Lack of cohesiveness, lack of social support, lack of recognition by the group and incompatible goals cause stress.

 

Thus a number of organisational factors cause stress in the individuals. Now let us learn about the extraorganisational factors.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 9 : Q - 1. ‘Stress is both physiological and psychological’. Discuss with examples.

 

Ans. Physiological: Stress influences the biological system of the human being. Certain visible forms of stress are increased blood pressure, proneness to heart disease, cancer, sweating, dry mouth, hot and cold flashes, frustration, anxiety, depression, increased level of cholesterol, ulcer, arthritis etc. Physical stress increases the body metabolic rate. This results into malfunctioning of internal gland and consequently the body disorder. This is felt in the form of increasing heart beating, increase in breathing rate and headache. This creates biological illness. The physical stress also creates psychological problems. In fact, physical stress and physiological disorders are interrelated. However, physical disorders and stress always need not associate positively. This is because of complexity of symptoms of physical stress and lack of objective measurement of impact of stress on bodily disorders.

 

Psychological : Psychological consequences are interrelated to biological consequences. They are invisible, but affect the employees’ job performance. Psychological stress creates a pressure on human brain. This is expressed in terms of certain psychological symptoms such as anger, anxiety, depression, nervousness, irritation, tension, boredom, aggressiveness, moodiness, hostility and poor concentration. Tensions, anxiety, and emotions lead to procrastination. Psychological stress produces interpersonal aggressions, misunderstanding in communication, poor interpersonal communication and low interpersonal attraction. This is demonstrated through aggressive actions like sabotage, increased interpersonal complaints, poor job performance, lowered self-esteem, increased resentment, low concentration on the job and increased dissatisfaction. Psychological stress produces harshness in the behaviour and may lead to assumption of authoritarian leadership style by the superior executive.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 8 : Q - 2. ‘Personality development takes place in various stages and a host of factors influence the development’ Discuss.

 

Ans. PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES INFLUENCING ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Personality attributes of employees are used in understanding the behaviour of employees and design suitable strategies to deal with their behaviour. Some of the traits that influence the behaviour in organisations are described below :

1) Authoritarianism : Authoritarianism is an attribute used to describe the persons having certain negative beliefs about the work and workers. Taking this concept, behaviour of employees in organisation is explained by using the following traits.

• believes in the formal authority.

• compels obedience to the authority.

• adheres to the conventional values and does not give preference to the new ideas.

• conforms to the rules and regulations.

• believes in directing the subordinates than listening to them.

• tries to be rigid and prefers structured environment.

Taking these characteristic traits, a leadership style of superiors was developed, known as authoritarian. Employees possessing the authoritarian attributes will command respect and achieve production targets in the short run.

 

2) Locus of Control : Locus of control is the belief regarding the outcome of their actions. Certain people believe that their skills and abilities influence the outcome of the action. Others believe that some external factors like fate or chance influence their result. According to Robbins, individuals who believe that they control what happens to them are called Internals and individuals who believe that what happens to them is controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance are called Externals.

Certain implications of locus of control behaviour of the individuals in organisations are described below:

 

    a) Absenteeism : People having internal locus of control possess a belief that the health is under their control. They inculcate good health habits and take proper care of their health. Thus, they have lower rate of sickness. Therefore, absenteeism is less in these people.

    b) Turnover : With respect to turnover, internals tend to take action and thus might be expected to quit the jobs more readily, but they tend to be more successful on the job and more satisfied.

    c) Decision-Making : People having external locus of control are more oriented towards intuitive decision making. On the other hand, internals consider more information before taking decisions. They are motivated by the achievements. They would like to control the outcome of the decisions.

    d) Motivation: Internals possess achievement motivation than externals that are just satisfied with the available rewards.

    e) Job Satisfaction: People having external locus of control are more dissatisfied on the jobs. This is because of the belief that the outcome is not under their control. In the case of internals, job satisfaction is more due to the belief that outcomes are the results of their actions.

    f) Psychological Commitment: Externals are less involved in the jobs. Internals possess commitment that is more psychological.

     g) Social interactions: People having internal locus of control are more sociable and excited to have social relationships to keep their identification and esteem.

The locus of control influences the job selection also. People having internal locus of control are successful in the sophisticated jobs.

 

3) Machiavellianism : Niccolo Machiavelli has introduced the concept. The term refers to the degree of individual effort to gain control over organisational tasks. According to Robbins, Machiavellianism is the degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means. The characteristics of Machiavellianism personality attributes are:

• They are active to participate in organisational politics.

• They manipulate more, win more and persuade less.

• They are adept at interpersonal game playing, power tactics and identifying influence system in organisations.

• They consider ethics.

 

4) Self-esteem : Self-esteem is a feeling of liking or disliking of one self. It is related to the individual desire for success. A person having a greater desire for success is rated as high self-esteem person. He believes that he possesses required abilities to succeed on the jobs. People with high esteem are risk takers. They tend to choose risky and challenging jobs. They have internal locus of control. They give preference to pride, recognition, flair, success, independence, and are satisfied with higher order needs than simple monetary motivation. On the other hand, people having low self-esteem are influenced by the external factors. They give more respect and importance to the opinions of others. They do not want to face unpleasant situation. Thus, they try to please others.

 

5) Self-monitoring : Self-monitoring is the ability to adapt to the situational demands. Individuals possessing high score on self-monitoring observe the behaviour of others from close angle in order to adjust their behaviour. They like mobility in their career. They are more successful in discharging contradictory roles. Simply they can wear a mask suitable to the situation. Thus, there is high degree of behavioural inconsistency in high self-monitoring people. Therefore, self-monitoring attribute helps managers to understand the personality and behaviour of their subordinates in order to direct, communicate, motivate and regulate them on the jobs.

 

6) Risk taking Attitude: Risk taking is an attitude. Persons differ in the attitude towards assuming the risk. The propensity to take risk influences the decision-making. High-risk takers are likely to take rapid decisions. Risk taking is also related to the job demands. High-risk taking is found in certain caste, religion, nationality and gender. In organisations, risk-taking behaviour is related to the ability of employees to take up challenging tasks and possess high achievement motivation.

 

Therefore, a number of personality attributes influence the behaviour of person in the organisational behaviour.

 

 

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 8 : Q - 1. What are the propositions of Trait theories? Explain Cattel’s Trait theory.

 

Ans. PERSONALITY TRAITS

Identification of personality is closely associated with the identification of traits. It is based on the proposition that personality is a culmination of whole person. Traits are combination of actions and reactions of an individual. It can be understood as relatively distinguishable characteristics that describe behaviour. Let us learn personality traits and types in detail.

Personality Traits

1) Allport’s Trait Theory: Gordon Allport has identified a number of traits to describe complex behaviour of human personality. He classified traits into two categories. Common traits and Personal dispositions.

While common traits are used to compare people, personal dispositions are unique and the most pervasive attributes describing the complexity of human personality. For providing comparison, six distinguishing trait orientations are used. They are social, political, economical, aesthetic, religious and theoretical. For instance social traits emphasises love and affection, care and interest on others and expression of sympathy. Political trait is related to power consciousness. While economic traits place emphasis on practical approach and cost and benefits of situation, aesthetic trait is concerned with creative and artistic aspects. Whereas, religious trait is related to unity and integrity. On the other hand, theoretical trait consists of use of rationality and empirical approach. A person possessing theoretical trait is characterised by the discoverer of critical truth.

 

2) Cattel’s Trait Theory: Cattels’ theory has developed on a new approach. The traits are identified into two categories. Surface traits and Source traits. Surface traits are visible outside and appear on the surface of personality. They are determined largely by underlying source traits. While source trait is a cause, surface trait is effect. Surface trait is symptom of source trait. Trait theories have recognised the continuity of personality. The theories have shown the utility of quantitative application in behavioural sciences. They have great deal of intuitive appeal.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 7 : Q - 4. What do you mean by values ? How value-based organisation can be created ?

Ans. Values provide the basic foundation for understanding a person’s attitudes, perceptions and personality. Values contain judgmental element as to what is right, good, or desirable. Values have both content and intensity attributes. Content attribute describes- what is important; intensity attribute describes- how much is it important. When individual’s values are ranked in terms of their intensity, we obtain that person’s value system. Value system is a hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual’s values in terms of their intensity. All of us have a hierarchy of values that forms our value system. However everyone does not hold the same values. Edward Spranger defines the values as the constellation of likes, dislikes, viewpoints, shoulds, inner inclinations, rational and irrational judgements, prejudices, and association patterns that determine a person’s view of the world. M. Rokeach defines values, as a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence, personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.

 

It is important to study values, as it influences attitudes, perceptions, motivation, evaluations, interpersonal relationships, behaviour, conflict handling styles, leadership patterns etc. In nutshell, values are at the core of bahaviour pattern of an individual.

 

DESIGNING VALUE BASED ORGANISATION

Organisations should be so designed that they ensure high productivity, high satisfaction of all stakeholders, and low negative factors such as absenteeism, employee turnover etc.

A value-based organisation promises sustainability and prosperity to its endeavours. For designing valuebased organisation, based on suggestions of Tannenbaum and Davis, following points may be useful.

• Treat people with trust.

• Be respectful to human being.

• Treat people as dynamic entity.

• Accept and utilise human differences.

• Treat individual as a whole person.

• Encourage appropriate expression of feelings.

• Promote authentic behaviour.

• Use authority and networking for benefit of organisation.

• Encourage appropriate confrontation.

• Encourage willingness to take calculated risks.

• Set process which shall take care of effective accomplishment.

• Emphasise collaboration.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 7 : Q - 3. For a manager, what are the uses of learning about attitudes ?

Ans. WORK RELATED ATTITUDES

Field of Psychology deals in hundreds of attitudes. Organisational Behaviour is concerned with work-related attitudes and behaviour. There are primarily three work-related attitudes which have significant influence on the organisation.

• Job Satisfaction: The various attitudes people hold towards their jobs are referred to as job satisfaction. It is individuals’ cognitive, affective, and evaluative reactions towards their jobs.

• Job Involvement: It indicates how far individuals identify themselves with the job, and whether outcome of the work is attached to self worth.

• Organisational Commitment: It explains how people feel toward their organisations. It is an attitude, which reflect the extent to which people identify with and are involved with their organisations and are unwilling to leave them.

Organisations should attempt to continuously gauge the attitudes of personnel at work place, so that corrective measures may be taken in proactive manner, for ensuring desirable behaviour at work place.

It is important to study attitudes, as attitudes influence behaviour. Now we shall focus our attention toward another issue -values- that influences attitudes, and in turn also determine choice of action as well as behaviour.

 

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 7 : Q - 2. Explain how attitudes influence behaviour, and how behaviour influence attitudes?

Ans. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOUR

The basic purpose of your studies on attitudes is to know the degree of impact of attitude on work behaviour. Early research works suggested that attitudes simply influence behaviour. However in the late 1960s, researchers had different tone. They opined that behaviour is far from simple, but it is understandable, and certainly not random. It was found that attitudes and behaviour are at best only weakly related. Now the more recent research works suggest that the influence of attitude on behaviour is significant, provided that we choose to focus on specific, relatively narrow attitudes (well defined) rather than more general ones. In other words, in presence of certain moderating variables (conditional factors), impact of attitude on behaviour is significant. Following are the factors, which determine degree of influence of attitudes on behaviour.

 

• Attitude Specificity: Specific attitudes are much better predictors of behaviour than general ones.

• Attitude Strength: Intense or strong attitudes are generally much better predictors of overt behaviour than weak ones.

• Attitude Relevance: It means the extent to which attitude objects actually have an effect on the life of the person holding various attitudes. The stronger such effects, the stronger the link between attitudes and behaviour.

• Attitude Accessibility: It is the ease with which specific attitudes can be brought into consciousness from memory. The greater such accessibility, the stronger the effect of various attitudes on behaviour.

• Existence of Social Pressure: When social pressures hold exceptional power, individuals’ overt behaviour follows the pattern set by such pressures, though there may be discrepancies between attitudes and behaviour.

• Direct Experience: Attitude may influence behaviour more strongly if an attitude refers to something with which the individual has direct personal experience.

 

So, do attitudes influence behaviour? Systematic research on this question indicates that they do. Researchers have shown interest in other direction also- whether or not behaviour influences attitudes? Interestingly higher correlation has been found in this direction, and it has been concluded that behaviour influences attitudes more strongly than attitudes influence behaviour. This view is called Self-perception theory. This theory proposes that attitudes are used after the fact to make sense out of an action that has already occurred, rather than as devices that precede and guide action. This concept appears to be in opposite tune with respect to the theory of Cognitive Dissonance. However, it may be beneficially used to shape the attitudes of individuals by encouraging them to participate in certain actions. For example if students are made to visit an institution engaged in providing vocational training to handicapped, students’ attitude towards handicapped may be positive in future. Taking help of our understanding on influence of attitudes on behaviour, as well as, influence of behaviour on attitudes- and making best use of both- we can say that in formative years (when experience is limited) there is significant influence of behaviour on attitudes. Once attitudes are formed after exposure to sufficient experience, attitudes start influencing behaviour in significant way.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 7 : Q - 1. What do you mean by the term attitude ? Describe process of formation of attitude.

 Ans. Definition of Attitude 

According to Baron, Attitude is defined as, lasting evaluations of people, groups, objects, or issues- in fact, of virtually any aspect of the social or physical world. Petty and Cacioppo state, Attitudes are general evaluations people make about themselves, other persons, objects, or issues. Breckler and Wiggins state, Attitudes are enduring mental representations of various features of the social or physical world. They are acquired through experience and exert a directive influence on subsequent behaviour.

PROCESS OF FORMATION OF ATTITUDE 

There are basically two sources of formation of attitude: a) Social Learning, and, b) Direct Experience: 

a) Social Learning : It is acquiring attitudes from others. There are broadly three processes of acquiring attitudes through social learning: Classical Conditioning, Instrumental Conditioning, and Modeling. 

• Classical Conditioning is a basic form of learning in which one stimulus regularly precedes another. It is learning based of association, that when first stimulus is present, the second would follow. Prejudices and preferences are created through classical conditioning. Classical Conditioning can play a role in the development of attitudes. 

• Instrumental Conditioning is concerned with learning to express the “right” views. Instrumental Conditioning is created through rewarding a desirable behaviour and discouraging an undesirable behaviour. Thus a particular type of attitude is created towards a particular type of action through Instrumental Conditioning. 

• Modeling as a concept, deals with individuals acquiring new behaviours through observing the actions of others. Individuals tend to do what others do, not what others say. Thus attitudes may be transmitted from one person to another, or from one group to another, or from one generation to another. 

b) Direct Experience : Attitudes are also formed through real life experience, which may be also called as direct experience or personal experience. Various studies suggest that strength of the attitudes acquired through direct experience is stronger than the strength of attitudes acquired indirectly. Attitudes acquired through direct experience are held more confidently and are more difficult to be subjected to change. If you hold strong attitude about an object, issue, or a person, and you want others to properly understand your stand, it is better to let others have direct experience with the attitude object.

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 6 : Q - 4. Explain Theory of Attribution.

 

Ans. THEORY OF ATTRIBUTION

 Attribution is an important concept for understanding perception, as it is related to judging the causes of others’ behaviour. An inaccurate attribution may lead to inaccurate perception. Our perceptions of what is happening in the environment depend very much on the attributions we make.

Attribution theory describes that when individuals observe behaviour, they attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused. Internally caused behaviour is those that are believed to be under the personal control of the individual. Externally caused behaviour is seen as resulting from outside causes over which the individual has no control.

Kelly’s Theory of Causal Attribution explains that in determining whether others’ behaviour stems mainly from internal or external causes, we focus on three types of information: a) Distinctiveness; b) Consensus; and c) Consistency.

 

Distinctiveness is extent to which a person behaves in the same manner in other contexts. If one behaves the same way in other situations, distinctiveness is low; if one behaves differently, distinctiveness is high. If a particular behaviour is unusual, an observer is likely to give the behaviour an external attribution. If the action is not unusual, it will be perhaps judged as internal.

Consensus is the extent to which other people behave in the same manner as the person we are judging. If others do behave similarly, consensus is considered, high; if they do not, consensus is considered low. If consensus were high, you would be expected to give external attribution, and if consensus is low, you tend to give internal attribution.

Consistency is tendency to respond the same way over time. Consistency also may be high or low. The more consistent the behaviour, the more the observer is inclined to attribute it to internal causes and vice-versa. When we make judgements about the behaviour of other people, we have tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors, in case of less than optimum performance by the others. This is called the fundamental attribution error. There is also a tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors such as ability or effort while putting the blame for failure on external factors such as luck. This is called the self-serving bias.

 

IGNOU : M.COM : MCO 1 : UNIT 6 : Q - 3. What are the barriers to accurate perception? How those barriers can be removed?

 

Ans. BARRIERS TO ACCURATE PERCEPTION

The perceiver’s own mindset and tendency to use shortcuts in judging others may become the barriers to accurate perception. Barriers to accurate perception create wider gap between ‘what things actually are’, and ‘what you think the things are’. Hence you should be vigilant about such barriers. Some of the important barriers to accurate perception are following:

• Stereotyping: It is judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs. Though such generalisations help to simplify complex world, its overuse mostly leads to wrong conclusion.

• Halo Effect: This perceptual bias means, drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of single characteristics.

• Similar-to-me Effect or Projection: It is another common type of perceptual bias, which involves the tendency for people to perceive more favourably others who are like themselves than those who are dissimilar.

• Selective Perceptions: It explains that people selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their interests, background, experience and attitudes.

• Distortion: It is distorting what we see (or even totally avoid seeing what actually exists) if we encounter data, which is threatening or incongruent to our self-concept.

• Contrast Effects: It is evaluations of a person’s characteristics that are affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.